On the road this summer with Green Day, Smashing Pumpkins and Rancid, the young ladies of the Linda Lindas had important questions for their elders. So, at one tour stop, they sat in on a Pumpkins VIP experience, where fans dropped questions for the band into a basket. One of them was, “Did you ever dream that you would tour with the Linda Lindas?”
“They saw us sitting there and we were like, ‘That wasn’t us!’” insists Linda Lindas drummer Mila de la Garza, 14, with a laugh. But they did ask, “What’s your favorite dinosaur?” After a moment, Pumpkins guitarist James Iha said the Dimetrodon, with its famous spine extended into a prominent sail (though technically not from the dinosaur era). Moments like this made the Linda Lindas’ two months of stadium dates a weird and welcome learning experience.
More from Spin:
A Day in the Life of…The Beaches
Taillights Shine Brighter Than Ever for the Tragically Hip
With the release of their second album, No Obligation, on Oct. 11 through Epitaph Records, the Linda Lindas’ unlikely career trajectory continues. Its 12 songs ricochet from adolescent rage to joyous release, fast guitars and gorgeous hooks. They’re still mostly in their teens, and learning as they go, but the songcraft is an organic balance of anxious riffs and vivid pop melodies.
“We recorded this one a long time ago, so we’re just ready to get everything out and to play the new songs,” says Mila, the youngest, of the new album. “We’re always excited for the next thing.”
On a recent weekday after school, Mila is gathered with the rest of the band at her family’s home studio in suburban L.A.: her sister, guitarist Lucia de la Garza, 17; their cousin, bassist Eloise Wong, 16; and close friend, guitarist Bela Salazar, the eldest at 20. All four take turns singing on the album.
Tapping directly into the punk rock they were raised on, the speedy title song, “No Obligation,” kicks things off, all jagged edges and Eloise angrily rasping in a pure punk rage: “You’d like me better if I grew out my hair/You’d like me better if I wasn’t a mess/You’d like me better if I’d put on a dress!”
“I remember it was one of those songs that just all comes out in one piece, where I’m like, ‘Okay, can’t sleep, I need to record a demo of this song and write it out,’” recalls Eloise.
“I feel like the title kind of encapsulates our approach to writing and being a band. We basically write what we want and we dress how we want, and we sound how we want. Of course, it’s cool if people happen to like it or dislike it, but mostly we are a band for ourselves. I think that’s what keeps it fun, and that’s what keeps it fresh.”
The Linda Lindas (Credit: Steve Appleford)
They started work on the album in the beginning of 2023 and finished in spring 2024, and this time made a point of more duets and more collaborative writing. It was done during school breaks.
“It was a long process and we were mostly just excited going into it because we felt like we were ready and to show how we have grown as writers, as musicians, as performers,” says Lucia. “And we had gotten all this experience from touring. We toured, well, not a lot for like a regular touring band, but a lot for kids that are in school. We went to like five different countries or something. So we were excited about making new music and writing together.”
The new songs range from the catchy, urgent power-pop of “All in My Head” to the Spanish-language “Yo Me Estreso,” with shades of bouncy Mexican polka as Bela sings of life’s anxieties. The music video guest-starred Weird Al Yankovic on accordion.
“Our culture is kind of part of who we are,” says Bela. “It’s a part of our story. Just like the same way that we write about day-to-day things, it’s just something that’s there and it’s kind of hard to ignore.”
For the Linda Lindas, summer vacation was no vacation at all. The quartet played high-profile gigs, opening for the Rolling Stones at L.A.’s SoFi Stadium in July, and for 26 stadium dates on Green Day’s Saviors tour. It’s exactly where they wanted to be.
“Touring is fun because you get into a rhythm of things,” says Lucia. “You’d have this experience where you are improving and getting better and you’re having fun with it. It was cool just to have that experience of getting to know the stage and getting to know their audience. Getting to know all the other bands too is an amazing thing that we don’t take for granted.”
Sharing a bill with the Rolling Stones was especially surreal, not only playing their set on that massive stage but meeting rock icons Keith Richards, Mick Jagger and Ronnie Wood backstage. “When Mick Jagger walked up, he stepped out of his golf cart with his striped jacket on and strutted over like he does on stage,” Eloise says. “He gave us all double fist bumps and it was very cool.”
“They’re just so inspiring in all ways,” says Lucia. “Maybe we could be doing music and playing shows at 80 too.”
Less than a month later, the Linda Lindas played stadiums across the U.S. as a support act to Green Day, Smashing Pumpkins and Rancid throughout August and September. They felt right at home on the mostly punk rock tour.
“There was such a strong sense of community within that tour that was really nice,” says Mila. “If you were walking in the hallway, you saw a bunch of people and they would smile at you, wave at you, or if you were playing on stage, you would see the other bands watching.”
On that tour, they sat in on a Pumpkins VIP experience where fans dropped questions into a basket. One of them was, “Did you ever dream that you would tour with the Linda Lindas?” The band insisted that didn’t come from them, but they did ask, “What’s your favorite dinosaur?” (James Iha said the Dimetrodon.)
Since their final Green Day dates wrapped around the school year’s beginning, they did school work on the road. (Except for Bela, who has already graduated high school.) Then it was back to school full-time.
“We have good friends and understanding teachers. It’s a little balancing act,” says Lucia, a senior in high school. Eloise is a junior. “We’re going to be done soon and we’ll see what happens after that. But right now we enjoy both. We try to have fun with them. It’s a little stressful, especially when we’re on tour. We had to do school on tour, but it was worth it.”
The Linda Lindas (Credit: Steve Appleford)
Six years ago, the band’s first moments onstage happened when former Dum Dum Girls singer-guitarist Kristin Kontrol recruited the girls to play with her at a 2018 music festival called Girlschool L.A., where the future Linda Lindas performed with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Karen O. and Best Coast. Soon after, the new quartet took their name from the 2005 Japanese art house movie Linda Linda Linda, Nobuhiro Yamashita’s story of high school girls who learned a punk song to perform at a talent show.
For the Linda Lindas, music quickly became more than a hobby. They were still little kids when Kathleen Hanna asked them to open for Bikini Kill at the Hollywood Palladium in 2019, singing “Kids in America” and “Cherry Bomb” among other covers. Mila was 8 years old. And Eloise, 11, did a cartwheel as she left the stage.
While they were just starting to be noticed around L.A., their discovery by the larger virtual world happened after the Linda Lindas performed in a video stream from a neighborhood library. One of the songs was an angry punk rock tune called “Racist, Sexist Boy.” The song’s message and the girls struck a nerve, catching the young players by surprise. Within a week, they were in Hollywood playing the song on Jimmy Kimmel Live!
“Oh wait, there are people listening to this?” recalls Eloise. “Suddenly our email was flooded and we had a bunch of interviews and it was like, whoa, what is this?”
“It’s cool that message resonated with so many people. It’s like, whoa, people are hearing this. It’s cool because it came from such an angry place and suddenly something so light came out of it. Now when we play it on stage, it’s so fun because everyone just bobs along. I’m just really proud of it.”
The Lindas signed to Epitaph, the label owned by founding Bad Religion guitarist (and family friend) Brett Gurewitz. A debut album, Growing Up, followed in 2022. “We kind of go rogue a lot, and they’re very nice to us about it,” Eloise says. “We appreciate that they let us do whatever.”
The father of Lucia and Mila is record producer-engineer Carlos de la Garza, so they grew up with a professional studio in the backyard guest house. He’s worked on records by Paramore, Bad Religion, Best Coast, Cold War Kids, Ziggy Marley, Cherry Glazerr and more. But when they were little kids, the de la Garza sisters saw all the people coming and going mainly as their dad’s “work friends,” says Mila.
The Linda Lindas (Credit: Jessie Cowan)
Their cousin Eloise remembers many visits and wondering about the mystery of what went on in that back house with Uncle Carlos. He now produces the Linda Lindas’ records. No Obligation is the first not to be recorded in the backyard studio. The band worked instead at the historic Henson Studios (formerly A&M) and Sunset Sound.
“I remember the morning drive to the studio. It felt so exciting,” recalls Lucia. “It felt so like, professional. I remember just the atmosphere of having a new place to be creative. There’s so much history at these studios, so many amazing works have been done there.”
A week later, on the album’s release date, the Linda Lindas are playing an album release celebration for No Obligation at the Masonic Lodge at Hollywood Forever Cemetery. It’s a fitting location, as the grounds are the final resting place for Dee Dee Ramone and home to an 8-foot-tall bronze statue of the late Johnny Ramone riffing on guitar. Soundgarden singer Chris Cornell is also buried here. And earlier in the day, the Lindas paid their respects at the grave of Toto, the heroic pooch from The Wizard of Oz.
The set opens with the band all in leather jackets to rip through the Ramones’ “Rockaway Beach.” Tonight is also the first chance to finally play all the new songs from the album. The rest of the hour-long set is typically euphoric. When they get to “Racist, Sexist Boy,” Eloise urges all the adults in front of her: “You have to vote so we don’t have a racist sexist boy in the White House!”
The night fittingly closes with “Rebel Girl,” the song they first performed back when they could barely play, but still defines the attitude of this next-generation band of young women claiming a place in rock and roll: “Love you like a sister always/Soul sister, rebel girl/Come and be my best friend/Will you, rebel girl?”
To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here.